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Another one of our off road excursions
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Printable View
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Another one of our off road excursions
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Tom,
Thanks for the ride report, filling in on what I have sadly missed. I had my Jialing ready, but a family matter prevented me from joining.
Qinghai and Gansu look as inviting as ever. Look forward to more of Tibet, which unfortunately will have to stay on my bucket list for now.
Thanks for sharing and keep the good writing flowing.
Cheers.
Cheers Milton! Yeah it's a real shame the Shanghai contingent couldn't come along but there's sure to be more trips in the future.
OK I'm gonna get my arse in gear and finish this bugger tonight!
19
Left at 10.30 after a particularly unsatisfactory Chinese breakfast of pickled veg and rubbery baozi. We went through a checkpoint pretty much immediately which didn't take long once Nyima handed over photocopies of our documents, then got waved through the next couple of more informal road blocks. The fourth checkpoint stopped us but was another quickie. We did another brief off road excursion for some nice pics before being waved through a couple more checkpoints. If you slowed down and looked willing to stop you generally got waved through the smaller ones as they were more interested in cars and trucks, there was no avoiding the major ones however who needed photocopies of all our documents.
We endured a massive ballache buying petrol and arguing over teapots then turned off onto the tourist road to Namtso Lake, tickets were 120 each but Nyima was free. All the cars had to register for speed checks but there was nothing for bikes so we sped off up the steepest climb we had encountered so far. The pass was 5100 and the bikes were noticeably struggling but not to the point where it became annoying, we still had more than enough power to be flying past all the cars. We had our first view of the lake from the pass then went through our 7th checkpoint of the day and on to Namtso tourist village, a collection of porter cabin like one storey buildings made from polystyrene insulation and thin aluminium. I'd seen a lakeside mountain that I had a suspicion we could ride up and went off to explore, Nyima said 'no chance' we'll wait here but there was a track up the backside of the mountain which I made it up before riding back to get George. It would have been impossible to ride up with a pillion but George and I rode back up to the summit and took some great pics of the huge lakes. From the top the water looked very inviting, almost like a Carribean island, and as there was no running water at the hotel we decided we'd go for a quick dip. At around 4700 metres it would be the highest swim either of us had ever done and we were sure it'd be ball shrinkingly cold! There was also some concern about whether swimming was allowed but we decided to go for it. We changed into swimmers and flip flops and wandered down passed the bemused looking Chinese tourists who were all totally overdressed in huge north face jackets and hiking gear. One guy said 'no swimming' and another said said 'swimming...cool!' which left us in a dilemma, we were fairly sure it was probably a sacred lake but we were hot and with no chance of a shower I (being a modern culturally sensitive man) said let's just run in fast before anyone can stop us. As we neared the lake shore a couple of Tibetans said 'no' but I was in before anyone could stop me showing of my front crawl and George dived in too. It was absolutely baltic so we were soon out and being greeted by many tourists who thought we were totally 'niu' and wanted photos with us. The locals were a bit peeved but we played the dumb whiteboy card, promised never to do it again and they were placated.
The hotel was 260 each, Nyima was free. No running water with a spine chilling lavatory a short walk away.
228 kms today.
4870 total.
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Our first view of Namtso Lake from the pass
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Also taken from the pass
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These were taken from a hill next to the tourist village on lakeside where we stayed
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Also taken from the hill, the dirt hillclimb was fairly challenging, the Austrian guide we would meet later said he told his tour groups it wasn't possible
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More from the hill and the poo stove at the hotel
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Swimming in a sacred lake...ooops. We were later told it's for disposing of dead bodies!
20
Over dinner the night before we'd decided to have a look at the S202 which Nyima thought could be very bad but looked possibly epic on the map. Most of the roads in Tibet run through the valleys and we were all a bit bored and yearning for some twisties. We agreed we'd turn onto the road and ask about the condition, I wasn't keen to do it if it was all road under construction hell but keen if it was in reasonable shape. Overnight it had absolutely pissed down and it was still raining in the morning but this didn't discourage George in the slightest, after some rigorous discussion we decided that if the road was in good condition and the rain had stopped then we'd do it. When we were loading up the bikes however Nyima put the kibosh on the whole deal saying that the police had been in touch about our speeding and that we were to stick to main roads the whole day. I was privately pleased by this development, George less so! I could imagine 100 kms of wet, muddy, beat-up mountain roads with over loaded bikes not getting any traction over steep passes and basically having a total nightmare of a day. George, to his credit was well up for it! With hindsight maybe we should have enquired as to the state of the road, and I have to admit by this stage I was quite looking forward to Lhasa, a rest day and a skinfull of piss!
We had to backtrack over the same pass to rejoin the main road to Lhasa and today it was totally covered in fog, freezing cold and raining steadily. We really had been with lucky with the weather on the previous day and our blind luck would continue in this department. We stopped at the junction for some Tibetan noodles at Nyima's mate's shop and he bumped into a few buddies, suitably warmed by spicy noodles and fresh bread we bashed along the main road to Lhasa. The rain stopped and we made good progress despite being warned for speeding by some coppers who flagged us down. They really were out in force and reducing people's speed was the order of the day, almost certainly due to the two fatal bus crashes that had happened in the area in the previous couple of weeks.
We made a rest stop at the checkpoint just before Lhasa and chatted to the friendly coppers for a while before removing our cold weather gear and riding into town. Godzilla met us at the hotel at 2.15 pm with the traditional white silk welcome scarves. We had made it to Lhasa! This felt like the end of another section of the trip and we were all looking forward to not riding the bikes the next day. Godzilla was wonderful; so laid back, friendly and really going out of his way to make sure we had everything we needed. You knew he had some inner steel hidden away though, to have summited Everest 4 times! The hotel was on him, as was a fantastic Tibetan dinner with local band. George brought some whiskey along and he, Nyima and I got quietly sozzled (Godzilla is teetotal) in the restaurant before sampling the local nightlife.
210 kms today, 5080 total.
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At the hotel in Lhasa, Godzilla greeted us with welcome scarves
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21
George went off early to see a temple and the palace, I stayed in bed all morning and saw the palace in the afternoon. I'm totally templed out and hope never to visit another as long as I live! Godzilla and I also swung by the train station to show them my bike, they said no problem for shipping – about 1500 quai to Shanghai and Shenzhen.
22
We needed to change the oil on George's bike but unfortunately the shop with all the foreign bikes was shut so we rode to Chinese bike showroom street and found a CFmoto shop with nice oil. After finding a dead bird in George's bashplate we managed to head out of town at 11 am. The traffic was dreadful in Lhasa and once we finally got out of that mess we went straight into a properly flooded road and a huge traffic jam. We managed to cut up the inside and some douche in a land rover didn't like that so he sped past us on the outside (in really deep water) and his bow wave went right over us, luckily we had our waterproofs on or we'd have been soaked to the skin. A petrol stop took an absolute age due to lack of teapots and things didn't improve when there were police cruisers on the road doing 30 km per hour and not letting anyone passed! They really weren't messing around with the whole speeding thing, Nyima had never seen anything like it and it really slowed us down but you could understand why with around 20 deaths in the last 2 weeks. We pulled over to let the police get ahead of us and passed the time looking at tourist tat by the side of the road. After 10 minutes we set off again and then I noticed my shifter had fallen off, luckily I managed to get George's attention and I pulled my bike off to the side of the road and he doubled back to find it. He soon returned with the shifter with bolt still attached and we were off again.
30 kms before Xigatse I saw a road heading off into the mountains so we found ourselves in a tiny hamlet which at first seemed deserted. The inhabitants eventually emerged to stare at the strange men on bikes, at first they seemed a bit nonplussed and probably concerned as to what the hell we were doing there but they soon came around and in the end didn't want us to leave. One old lady even measured George's height using her forearm!
In Xigatse there is apparently a very good value 4 star hotel for a few hundred but after my indignant protesting we ended up in a reasonably priced (140 quai) 1 or 2 star place. We went to a Tibetan restaurant where we sampled some yak liver then on to a local drinking hole where the waitress came around and forced you to drink, she didn't drink herself but would fill up our glasses and tell us to get a bloody move on!
Checkpoints had ceased to be an issue by now, we went through about 6 that day and had to stop at a couple. George and I would have a 5 minute chin wag while Nyima dropped off the photocopies and we'd be on our way.
5393 total.
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Thank god George found the shifter otherwise I'd have been in trouble
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This was taken when we did a short excursion near Xigatse
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Som more shots of that short excursion outside of Xigatse featuring some very surprised locals
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23
I needed to tighten my chain first thing and we left at 11 am in miserable rain. The first pass of the day was 4530, the next 5245, after which followed 40 kms of cratered road works. We went through a normal police checkpoint then a military one in quick succession and had to deposit photocopies at both and then we saw it...Everest. George was so excited he dropped my bike haha! We'd been riding along and i'd saw the unmistakable pyramid poking out above some hills in the distance, my biggest worry about the whole trip was the mountain being shrouded in cloud and my heart missed a beat when I saw it. I slammed on the breaks and asked Nyima if that was Everest and then followed lots of backslapping and dropping of my bike hehe. Nyima then said there was a bettwe view from a nearby hill and we sped off and took more pics. The whole time I was fearful of the clouds coming back in, which is common at that time of year but we were lucky and it staye clear all evening so we returned and got some sunset pics after dinner.
There was only one hotel in Old Tingri, George paid 200 for a room with toilet, I paid 70 and shat in a less glamorous surroundings.
5679 total.
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On the way to Old Tingri
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Still on the road to Old Tingri
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Our first sighting of Everest just outside of Old Tingri
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We then rode up a hill in the centre of Old Tingri for a better view of the mountain
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There was a construction site at the top of the hill, no idea what
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We went back up afer dinner to see the sunset
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Taken from the same hill where we saw Everest from a distance but looking in the opposite direction. You can really appreciate how fast the weather can change
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This is the dirt road to Everest
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The first proper view we had of the mountain as we approached base camp
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The monestry at base camp
24
Left Old Tingri at 11.15 to ride the 70 kms to base camp, first we had large rocks, then some small stream crossings, then sandy sections followed by 60 kms of corrugated potholed misery. After a bone shaking few hours we were treated with a full view of the mountain...I panicked again, convinced the clouds were about to cover the mountain and started taking photos. George and Nyima calmly pointed out that there was a better view about 1 km further on so I raced ahead and started snapping away in earnest. Finally I was satisfied, we had seen the whole mountain in pretty much the clearest conditions anyone could hope for. My biggest fears had not come to light but we realised how luck we'd been when the monks at the base camp temple told us they hadn't seen the mountain in a week.
We checked into the base camp guest house and met an Austrian guide and his group of 15 riders who were all one YBRs. Climbing base camp is about 8 kilometres passed the guest house so we rode the 4 kms to the bus stop and hopped on the bus. Private vehicles cannot go past this point so after bumpy 10 minutes on the bus we arrived at the deserted climbing camp (off season) and had a quick look around. By this time Everest was completely obscured by clouds so we hurried back to guest house and sank a few bevvies with the Austrians. We were well acclimatised by now and managed to sink a fair few but neither of us slept that well, I was really struggling to get enough air in my lungs as my nose was blocked so ended up panting like a dog, much to George's displeasure.
We shared a room for 240 – no bog or running water but we were used to that by now.
5759 total.
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Advanced base camp looking away from the mountain
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Advanced base camp. Here Everest is completely hidden from view
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Advanced base camp
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The dirt track heading out of base camp
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We knew what to expect but it didn't make it any less nasty
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Near the bottom of an abosolutely epic descent
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Our shephard pal
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No-one thanked me for leading them up this rocky path
Thumbnail below is on the way back to Xigatse
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This guys sheep was practically tame
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The reservoir on the way to Lhasa
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The aforementioned reservoir
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